i am always envious when i see 3d print tutorials ( youtube mostly) where the reviewer/presenter has a beautiful ,colorful rack of spools ;
but does this make sense ?
we hear that filament should be kept dry, half of my supply sources send a nice high quality plastic bag and dessicant in which to maintain the spools after opening the original packaging;
but those tutorials and their racks run counter to this; spools on those racks are out in the open air;
which is it ?
in my case since half of my suppliers do supply those bags and half do not, i have to double up sometimes; 2 half-used spools in a single bag; luckily they can both fit ( but it looks awful);
as a result i have these piles of filament bags just laying around; looks quite untidy, as if i dont know what i am doing;
any advice ? (how important is that drying (PLA) ?)
To answer your last question, very. I bought a $60 food dehydrator to dry filament with. It has easily paid for itself. Some brands of filament (looking at you Ninjatek) do not manage to ship dry filament, or don’t package it adequately. I now make it standard practice to put a spool in the dehydrator for 10hrs at least before using it. Wet filament absolutely causes print defects. PLA is definitely not excluded from the list of hygroscopic filaments.
thanks , i appreciate the advice; so it follows that those how-to clips showing the large filament racks are just for the show at hand ?
i will go out and buy a filament dryer or borrow your idea and get a food dehydrator;
reading just a bit on the filament dryer, hard to believe that the filament is dry without unraveling the whole spool and slowly rewinding it ;
what the articles i read seem to say is that the outer layers will dry, what about all the layers under thos outer layers ?
Yes, display is likely the only reason that those racks of filament are there.
Food dehydrator will work, just make sure it will fit your spools, or be prepared to do what I did, and make a new compartment for it so you can fit more spools in at one time. I said 10hrs minimum. Maybe others can chime in as to what they feel is a viable minimum time for a full spool. I usually do much more than ten hours. A day or more is more normal for me. As long as you don’t heat the filament up too much, you can’t really over dry filament. Just make sure you set your temperature at least 5°C (I go closer to 10°C) below the glass transition temperature of the filament in question. I honestly don’t know how well the inner layers dry. Spools often have side holes too. It would follow though, that the layers that are the hardest to dry would also likely be the driest beforehand. Unless, of course, the moisture was introduced to the filament before it was spooled.
More than likely yes,
The whole reason for it is that it looks nice for the backdrop of the video. They really aren’t too practical in use. Theoretically you could build some sort of humidity controlled closet or something which you could hang the spools in, but even this would most likely cause problems over time.
There are actually some filament dryers that you can get like the sunlu one that we sell (linked below), this dryer can be hooked up to a Bowden tube so that the whole time the print is going the filament is continually being dried.
Happy printing,
Matthew
Edit* sorry forgot to include the link!
You might be able to run a high duty dehumidifier in a small room that would keep filament, stored on a wall , dry but it would probably dry up the blood in your veins too!
Haha I like this idea,
I think I will get a dehumidifier meant for use in a warehouse or something and chuck it in my room. I will never have to worry about wet filament again 
Matthew
What about your blood?
Ah who needs blood,
You will just never have to worry about mosquitos again!
here in thailand we have fewer shopping choices but we do have “dry cabinets”
such as 
https://www.lazada.co.th/products/shutter-b-dry-cabinet-sb-150at-150-5-shutterb-150at-i4008824732-s15565786222.html?&search=pdp_v2v?spm=a2o4m.pdp_revamp.recommendation_2.7.3cab66416usZNf&mp=1&scm=1007.16389.286994.0&clickTrackInfo=1becb840-604b-4870-a33b-6bf6ab7d071d__4008824732__5680__trigger2i__287002__0.18__0.18__0.0__0.0__0.0__0.18__6__null__null__null__null__null__null____13290.0__0.17607223476297973__5.0__3__10950.0__173871,203107,204555,219059,226018,232522,234256,234278,234359,235501,235822,237483,243890,255084,255127,255313,256077,256194,257128,257225,264539__null__null__null__3650.16544_955.3632__null__32104__null__0.0__0.0________null__null__0
these cabinets would seem to fit the bill but they have no temp control that a food hydrator would have ;
which type would you suggest ? the dry cabinet seems better suited for long term storage, the food hydrators i looked at seem better suited to shorter term projects
sounds like a good idea but i am confused how that bowden feed setup would work ;
the whole idea of the dryer is that it is sealed, right ?
if so then how to get the filament to dynamically feed thru it ?
ok i think i see it now; there is a feed directly thru a tube from the dryer;
but a question:
the one approach here is to dry the filament for quite a while before use, the other is to dry it for a very short time while actually in use;
thoughts ?
i think i will adopt your approach with that filament dryer, reason being:
say i get a new spool PLA silk tri-color, i might want to exhaust that spool over a few prints, some old favs and some new ones; that might add-up to 48 hours of virtually non-stop printing given my preferred balance of quality/speed; so right now that means 48 hours of constant humidity exposure for those surface filament layers;
we are heading into our monsoon season here in thailand and the overall humidity will jump and stay high maybe until november;
still might get a dryer cabinet for both the drying and organizing the spools ( as opposed to laying everywhere in those plastic bags…)
Sounds like a good plan!
I can only imagine that the necessity of these filament driers in a very humid location. Getting one of these cabinets seems like a good idea for long term storage. But if you are going to be doing lots of long prints then it definitely makes sense to get a nice dryer to run the whole duration of the print.
The other nice thing about getting a nice filament dryer is that it gives you peace of mind when doing your printing. Having wet filament is just one more thing to worry about if you are having problems with a print, so if you can be sure that the filament is dry it can save you lots of troubleshooting time in the future.
Thanks,
Matthew
Running filament through a tube from a dryer to the printer is only necessary for problem materials like some Nylons.
Pre-drying is usually good enough for most filaments.
In most cases yes,
But in the case of living in quite humid conditions it is possible that some problems could occur. A filament dryer just helps to give some peace of mind that your 2 day print isn’t going to stop because the filament went all wonky.
Matthew
my printers are in my (open air) large garage area here in thailand;
last night we had a pretty hard storm go through, downpour and enough wind that i had to hold strong cardboard up against my delta for about 20 minutes ( yeah i need think about making that a permanent thing) and was concerned that long running print would foul;
just dumb luck it never hiccuped; maybe in hindsight i should have paused the print till the worst of the storm passed;
interestingly , the LED lights on the printer head were attracting bugs and i thought they had potential to foul the print, but no issue,; double lucky i suppose
What about building an enclosure that you could keep drier, maybe with descant packs, then the surrounding air.